Part of the Manipur Crisis Chronicle. Every claim carries a cited source; contested numbers are shown with their dates, never merged. This installment covers 1–30 June 2025, with two dated backfills (25 May, 29 May) and a July 2024 governor backfill.
The month opened underwater.[224] Flash floods triggered by overflowing rivers and breaches in embankments affected over 56,000 people across the state, with 10,477 houses damaged and 56,516 individuals impacted.[243] At least 57 relief camps were opened, mostly in Imphal East, and 93 landslides were reported in the five days to June 3.[243] One person was missing after being swept away in Imphal East on June 2.[243] The Gwaltabi civil disobedience campaign — born of the May 20 bus-signage row, in which a Manipur State Road Transport bus ferrying journalists to the Shirui festival was stopped and the state's name on its windshield was reportedly covered with white paper — had been suspended after the floods hit the Valley.[224] Its organisers had already rejected the state's two-member probe committee and demanded an "independent inquiry" headed by a retired judge.[241] Chief Secretary Prashant Kumar Singh had told a May 29 press conference, with Security Adviser Kuldiep Singh present, that there had been "no instructions whatsoever or even remote thought of covering the name of the State", and that the Governor had constituted an Inquiry Committee to report in a timebound manner.[239]
The incident: a joint team of the NIA and Manipur Police arrested Arambai Tenggol (AT) member Kanan Meitei in Imphal West late on Saturday June 7, around 9.40 p.m., a police official told The Hindu.[225] The accused was said to be the "army chief of AT" and a former Manipur Police head constable.[225] The Central Bureau of Investigation's account differs: a CBI spokesperson said "Kanan Singh was arrested by the CBI at the Imphal airport" on Sunday June 8 and brought to Guwahati to be produced for police remand.[226] India Today NE likewise reported the CBI arrested the AT leader at Imphal Airport and brought him to Guwahati.[228] The two agency framings — NIA-plus-police arrest in the city versus CBI arrest at the airport — are shown side by side, not merged. The federal agency said the trials of the Manipur violence cases had been shifted from Manipur to Guwahati in view of the law-and-order situation.[226] The Hindu counted "at least five leaders" arrested, and reported the names of the other four were not disclosed.[224][242]
The response was immediate and violent.[224] Large groups spilled onto the streets overnight in Imphal's Kwakeithel and Uripok, burning tyres and old furniture to block roads; at many places mobs clashed with security personnel, and some vehicles of the security forces were torched on Airport Road.[224] A mob set a bus on fire at Khurai Lamlong in Imphal East.[226][229] Protesters gheraoed the Imphal airport gate at Tulihal after unverified reports that the arrested leader would be flown out.[229] In Kwakeithel, several gunshots were heard but it could not be ascertained who fired them.[229] AT members shouted "We are civilians, not terrorists" and "Release our leader or arrest us all".[227] Some protesters reportedly attempted self-immolation — pouring petrol over themselves.[227][229] One protester was quoted: "We have given up arms. We have done what you're supposed to do during the floods. Now you're arresting us. We will kill ourselves."[228]
The administration answered with a standard package: internet, mobile-data, VSAT and VPN services were suspended for five days in Imphal West, Imphal East, Thoubal, Bishnupur and Kakching; an indefinite curfew was imposed in Bishnupur; and assembly bans under Section 163 BNSS were issued — four-or-more-persons prohibitory orders in the other four valley districts (with Imphal West's order separately cited banning five or more).[224][225][229] Arambai Tenggol retaliated by "imposing" a 10-day shutdown across the five districts, exempting media and medical services.[224][227] The suspension of internet, a government order said, aimed "to curb the spread of misinformation and inflammatory content on social media".[227]
Same-day politics: a delegation of about 25 MLAs and one MP, cutting across party lines, called on Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla at Raj Bhavan on June 8 to register alarm at the "sudden breakdown of order".[228][242] Congress MLA Okram Surjakumar said the public was being "kept in the dark regarding the charges" and urged transparency.[228] BJP MLA Kh Ibomcha defended the government: "We are not targeting Arambai Tenggol. In fact, the group assisted during recent floods."[228] The Governor chaired a security review with the Security Adviser, DGP, Commissioner (Home), ADGP (Law & Order), IGAR (S) and IG CRPF, and told the delegation all necessary steps were being taken to restore normalcy.[242] The record's governor note: Bhalla was in office on June 8.[242] (That succession has a dated backfill: Lakshman Prasad Acharya was sworn in as Governor on July 31, 2024, after Anusuiya Uikey's removal — the chronicle's earlier record named Bhalla as the December 2024 change; the two entries are dated and not merged.)[245][135]
The week also hit the press.[231] The Editors' Guild Manipur and the All Manipur Working Journalists' Union condemned the assault of two Impact TV News reporters, allegedly by CRPF personnel, while covering the Kwakeithel protest around 10 p.m. on June 7.[231] As protest, all editorial columns in the June 9 editions of Manipur's major newspapers were left blank with the slogan "AMWJU & EGM condemn repeated assault and intimidation of journalists".[231] The unions resolved to file an FIR.[231] The episode extends a documented pattern from May — the Gwaltabi round saw the IJU condemn security-force harassment of media, and this month the protest moved into the newspapers themselves.
On June 9, the Government of India held its first formal round of talks with the Kuki-Zo Suspension of Operations (SoO) groups in New Delhi.[232][233] An MHA team led by interlocutor A.K. Mishra met five delegates of the United People's Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), headed by UPF spokesperson Aaron Kipgen and KNO spokesperson Dr. Seilen Haokip.[232] The delegation insisted on prioritizing political dialogue over tactical concerns, and demanded the immediate removal of Meitei insurgent camps from Sadar Hills in Kangpokpi district.[232] The Hindu's report adds the administrative frame: the meeting discussed changes to the SoO ground rules, the opening of National Highways 2 and 37, and surrender of weapons; the groups were asked to shut down or relocate camps close to Meitei-inhabited areas; and the Kuki-Zo side reiterated its demand for a union territory with legislature.[233] Context from the same report: the 2008 agreement covered about 2,200 cadres from 25 insurgent groups in 14 camps; the stipend of ₹6,000 per month had not been paid since the violence erupted; and the Manipur government pulled out of the tripartite pact on February 29, 2024.[233] Both outlets agreed a follow-up round was expected.[232][233]
The parallel political track moved in the valley too.[234] Assembly Speaker Thokchom Satyabrata Singh said on June 19 that a change in the administration was "inevitable" and that a popular government should be formed: "I heard that groups are being constituted for the formation of a government. I also heard someone from Delhi will be deputed for the government formation."[234] Former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said on June 28 that efforts were underway to restore a popular government and that "in the last seven or eight months, there have been no reports of fighting between communities".[235] That claim does not match the chronicle's own record: valley riots in November 2024 brought 23 arrests, curfew and an internet shutdown.[128] The contrast is flagged, not resolved — one is a politician's assertion, the other a contemporaneous report.
Two Naga-side developments made June distinctive.[240] First, the Committee on Protection of Indigenous People's Ancestral Land (COPIPAL) — formed during a Joint Tribes Council consultative meeting at Konsaram, a Liangmai Naga village in Kangpokpi, after an April 5 attack it called an "unprovoked and orchestrated act of aggression" against the village's Liangmai inhabitants — suspended its "complete restriction on the movement of Kukis" within the territories of the Inpui, Liangmai, Rongmei and Zeme communities.[240] The ban was to have taken effect June 2; it was withdrawn "for some time" in the "interest of maintaining peace" after the United Naga Council and Joint Tribes Council sought relaxation.[240] Second, the All Naga Students' Association, Manipur (ANSAM) led a 48-hour office picketing across Naga hill districts from June 2, shutting government offices; on the concluding day a scuffle at Senapati allegedly damaged the SP's vehicle, with no official statement yet issued.[244] (The Hindu's copy carries a dating slip — "broke out on May 3, 2025" — for a conflict it elsewhere dates to 2023; the slip is flagged, not adopted.)[240]
Nineteen-twenty June: unknown gunmen injured a Meitei farmer near Bishnupur, and a Kuki woman, Hoikholhing Haokip — wife of the chief of Langchingmanbi village adjoining Bishnupur — was shot dead.[237] The Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum called a shutdown across Churachandpur demanding "immediate action against those responsible for this atrocity, concrete steps from the Centre to ensure the protection of tribal lives and territory, and an independent investigation into the repeated buffer zone violations".[237] The All Meitei United Cultural Organization expressed "deep dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Home Affairs' performance", and questioned the work of Security Adviser Kuldiep Singh.[237]
Thirty June: at least four people, including a 60-year-old woman, were shot dead by unidentified gunmen near Mongjang village in Churachandpur district while travelling in a car around 2 p.m.[236] Police said the shots appeared to be point-blank; more than 12 empty shells were recovered; no organisation claimed responsibility.[236]
On June 12, Air India Flight AI-171 crashed seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad; two cabin crew were from Manipur — 20-year-old Kongbrailatpam Nganthoi Sharma (Meitei) and 26-year-old Lamnunthem Singson (Thadou).[238] "Divided by ethnic strife for more than two years, Manipur has united in grief," The Hindu wrote: ITLF condoled, the Thadou Students' Association issued statements for both families, COCOMI called them "two precious daughters of our soil", and a Meitei Heritage Society spokesperson said "In death, we are all the same."[238] Ms. Singson herself had been displaced from Imphal during the conflict and relocated to Kangpokpi's Kanggui.[238] The episode is the month's clearest perception datapoint: an ethnic-divide-unity story that both communities' organisations chose to narrate together.